Category: chain of command

His shoes are too big and his hat is too small,His trousers are tight and his coat is too long,But it does not matter, because he is my soldier,Somewhere in Sweden!
– Translated from the 1940 Swedish Song “Min Soldat” (My Soldier), performed by Ulla Billquist and written by Nils Perne.

Some of the Swedish Troopers and a slightly Converted 38(t) from Plastic Soldier Company

A few weeks back I presented an initial stab at a Swedish Platoon Organisation for the WW2 era (here is a link to the earlier posting) for Chain of Command. Since then I have been working on some miniatures for the platoon and some of the support options – I will present the work to date in this blog update. I will leave out the work I have been doing on vehicles (armoured cars and tanks, I think that will be a good one on its own) as I have not yet finished the tank markings/decals – but I am working on it with some help from some friends.

I want to state how grateful I am to the community when doing something like this, the support from all kind of places with encouragement, the research and offers of help. I even got a fair few of 3D printed models for a Swedish Tank type sent to me by a friend on Twitter. Good stuff!

Later blog updates will also show/discuss jump-off markers and some terrain features to make the battle field having a touch of Scandinavia – making it look as Scandinavian as a wargames table with Snake rail fencing looks American!

Here is a clue!

I would like to do an what-if Scenario based on the operational plan developed by the commander of the 25th Panzer Division (link to Wikipedia here), Adolf von Schell, to attack Sweden with a handful of divisions from Norway. This is described at high level in the book “Andra Världskriget och Sverige (2002)” (that translates to: The Second World War and Sweden) by Jan Linder, and contains the following picture.

The side note states “Map showing the German Operative study against Sweden the Summer 1943”. Sketch from Ny Militar Tidskrift 1961. The Heading of the Map states “Study of a Operation against Sweden in 1943”. The Map show airborne attacks and the movements of divisions, the two top arrows for the “Operation II” goes through the County were the Roller of Ones was born – therefore I find this potential scenario interesting.

I have not been able to find any more information on this operation and if you are reading this and know more – please let me know. It would be fun to do a linked campaign of fighting in some of the areas I know very well from my childhood.

It is interesting to note that the 25th Division was issued with outdated French Tanks and according to the Wikipedia entry above the following was the combat strength in 1943:

It would give a nice opportunity to get some French tanks and do them in German “livery”. However that is for the future and I have yet some research to do…

The Swedish Platoon Organisation and Models Used

In reading the old manuals there are a few changes required to the original list that are summarised below. I will update the Platoon document at a later date.

1940 Platoon – More pictures below

(i) Due to allocation of runners, I have reduced the number of Riflemen in each section with one. I need to verify this so I did 4 extra models just in case!

(ii) The first Section/Grupp had an SMG armed rifleman in the Rifle Team/Gomgången. However, due to shortages this was not always possible, especially early in the period.

(iii) The manuals indicate the presence of two Teams/Omggångar and that there are situations when they fight as two elements – one K (Kulspruta / Light Machine Gun) and one G (Gevär / Rifle). Therefore I have re-organised the Platoon organisation in the picture to reflect these changes.

This is still work in progress and may change as I read more stuff. For the 1943 to 1945 Platoon I have made the same changes to the organisation. Again, this is an aspirational platoon, and as you can see it offers a significant increase of fire Power with 2 SMGs per section and the M/42 Semi-Automatic Rifle, and in addition the Platoon 47mm mortar and the Anti-tank rifle.

1943 Platoon – More Pictures Below

I decided to make enough miniatures so that I could field a platoon at any stage of the WW2 period. Following some discussions on twitter and a few other similar projects the 15mm Italians from Flames of War seemed to be a good match for the m/39 uniform.

This assumes the M/37 helmet and the M/39 uniform, at the time the latest equipment available. Some units would be equipped older uniforms and helmets, like the earlier helmet M/26 and older uniforms.

If you are doing this project in 28mm you could use the fantastic Ådalen Range that depicts interwar Swedes, these are just troops that have not had new kit – the range covers all that you need for the early war (limited poses, and there are no SMGs and the Machine Gun is perhaps a bit dated, but I think it would work and if you even use some of the earlier uniforms in the mix you may get a motley crew of ill-prepared 1940 soldiers), more information here (I have not ordered any, but they do look good. I suggest you contact them first before you make your order – I always do).

Anyway back to my 15mm project.

I bought the following from Battlefront

1 pack of ISO101 Italian Artillery Group – gives you crew for your guns as well as some SMG armed gentlemen.

1 No. PL510 37mm wz.36 gun – this is the famous 37mm Bofors Anti-tank gun, used by the Poles, Finns and the Swedens (and others).

I also had some Polish Machine Guns from Batttlefront and bought the WW1 Austrian Machine Gun from Peter Pig.

This is a picture of an enactor I found on the net, with an older helmet than the M/37.

I used the following paints for these:

Jacket and Trousers – Vallejo German Field Grey 70830

Helmet – Vallejo 70895 Gunship Green

Bread bag – Vallejo 70886 Green Grey

Leather / Belt – Vallejo 70875 Beige Brown

Water Bottle / Gaiters – Vallejo 70988 Khaki

I tend to use Field Drab, then Medium flesh tone for skin, saddle brown for the rifle buts.

I put a wash of army paint quick shade on top – soft tone.

The Swedish 1940 – 1943 Platoon

The full platoon with the Platoon HQ and the 4 SectionsPlatoon HQ1st Section (with the SMG, he is the kneeling Soldier in the middle of the left team, from the Artillery Group Pack)

2nd Section

3rd Section

4th Section

The Swedish 1943 to 1945 Platoon

This is the same models as above but with some swaps and the Mortar Section.

The Platoon with the HQ, Mortar Section and 4 Rifle SectionsPlatoon HQ – note the Platoon Sergeant now has a Submachinegun.1st Section – As before but now Sergeant also has a Submachinegun. Note that two of the Rifel

2nd Section – as the 1st Section

3rd Section – as the 1st Section

4th Section – as the 1st Section

Mortar Section – built from a casualty Polish miniature and 2 Polish anti-tank crew from the 37mm AT Pack.

The 47mm Mortar again!Before paining – mortar built using a paper clip and a thin spaghetti!

In addition there is an anti-tank Rifle for the Platoon, I made two of these conversions.

The are based on a kneeling rifleman and I did the simplified rifle from some plastic coated paper clips, it shows better in the picture below.

It also shows the simple Snipe Conversion.

Some support options

A SniperThree blokes on a base, the Engineering Team for now. Will do some conversions at some point from Peter Pig Engineers.Bofors 37mm Anti- Tank Guns, mix of the Italian and Polish Crew to create these dynamic bases! Perhaps they were not Camouflage painted, but his is a little bit of a what-if so I may perhaps be forgiven.Same as aboveSame as above

The next one was a little bit trickier, but once I found a reasonable proxy the conversion was simple, using some very thin cocktail straws I bought may years ago. I wanted to mode the Bofors 75 mm Model 1934 Mountain Gun.

Like this:

In the post last week I discussed the Project the Little One and I are doing to play the 29 Let’s Go Pint sized campaign from Too Fat Lardies (link here if you are interested). The German platoon and supports have not yet been delivered as an item is on back-order, so we have pressed on with other stuff. One of the most pleasing aspects of a WW2 Skirmish is a nice looking table that sets the scenes alive. If you look at any of the Too Fat Lardies games there is plenty of character in the table itself – nice buildings, trees, hedges but also those additional things that makes it look real, like Green houses, planters, sheds, benches, telegraphs poles, pissoirs, statutes, monuments, civilian cars, old advertisement on buildings, etc.

Warbases have a nice range suitably called Chain of Command that has some very nice item including two garden sets (link here), they have been developed with Too Fat Lardies. The only problem for our project is that they are all in 28mm – if I did this in 28mm I would definitely get these.

I contacted Warbases and said something in the line of “Hey Lets Go 15mm?”. They told me they do not do them in 15mm, but that perhaps the stuff that Scenic Route Models could fit my needs (link here). Now these model are in OO scale that technically is 1/76 whilst 15mm is about 1/100 (most of the time) – in reality I feel that most of the Battlefront miniatures are bigger than 15mm. However, I thought to myself, I could throw a few pounds in their direction in the interest of research. So I ordered the following sets this Tuesday and they were delivered this Saturday.

And of course their Green House (well I got two).

I got them and as I suspected felt that there were a little bit on the large side (as they are design for another scale), this is the Greenhouse door vs the doors on the houses I am using (more about those below).

However I got out my good old razor saw and cut of a few layers on the bottom on all the pieces before assembling (you could use a knife and cut carefully as well) – A relatively easy modification.

And, I did similar modifications to the other stuff – always modifying the height. The only further modifications I did to the buildings where adding roof ridges (cocktail sticks), and gluing on 80 grade sandpaper on the shed roofs, and adding some glass to the plant boxes and green houses – this was from some sheets from some thin plastic from packaging for strawberries (I ate them and cleaned it up first). After I painted them I added some flower tufts to the planters and green houses. And, I almost forgot, I also added some detail to make the opening to the Green house look more like a door.

I am very happy with the results (the 15mm Americans from last week making another appearance).

I have made a second order for some more stuff (mainly repeats, but trying out one or more other things) and also ordered some other things from some other suppliers I hope will work as well – but will write about those in future updates here on the blog.

I also stumbled upon the following during an eBay search for something completely different. I thought it looked like some kind of stone pattern.

So, I got myself a piece of it to try out – it is called Faux Leather Python Pattern Upholstery Fabric and is sold in 1 meter lengths (1.4m wide) for £12. I got it and did a quick dry-brush and detail and this is how it turned out – not 100% satisfied but it does work.

Finally I bought a whole bunch of 15mm Normandy houses/structures (16 No. in total) from Empires at War – they are pre-painted stuff and are very good (link here). We only built a few and will only need about 5 No. for the 29 Lets Go campaign and only applied a little bit of additional paint mainly to hide the brown laser cut mdf sides – if you look at the pictures you can see the before and after look – they do work well without any modifications as well.

I have bought all of the Too Fat Lardies Pint sized campaigns for Chain of Command to date, but I have to admit of not yet played any of them. I have used Chain of Command for some very fun Games in a Finno-Russian Winter war setting and for the Continuation war period. I am currently struggling with time to do any bigger gaming ventures apart from some gaming with the Little One as I spend more time than I would like away from home due to work. He had up to recently not been to interested in Chain of Command but now, out of the famous blue, he would like to do some Normandy actions, so I thought the first campaign Richard Clarke did could work well (and I have to admit I fancied painting some Americans and Germans).

I really enjoy the format of the “Pint Sized” campaign books and you can find this one and others on the Too Fat Lardies webpage (link here), you would need the Chain of Command Rules as well as At the Sharp End campaign supplement for the full experience – but I dare say you could use this with any WW2 plutoon based rules and have fun they are great products. The campaign covers the advance of the US 175th Infantry Regiment and their struggles in linking the Omaha and Utah beaches.

To play the scenarios you basically need a platoon or US Infantry and a Platoon of Germans, with some support options.

I am also using this project as an opportunity to get the Little One a little bit more involved in the terrain making aspect of the hobby, this time we did some roads and telegraph poles – which was great fun and with immediate gratification (at least for us) in the pictures below.

The Little one dry brushing a road with great care and precision, I wish I had that dedication but I do not have the time. Joke aside he was a great help and it is nice to have some company doing this kind of stuff.

We also did some Telegraph poles that we bought from e-bay, they are laser cut MDF but I think they work very well and saved us some building time and 24 for a fiver (£5) is much cheaper than some alternatives – that perhaps look better, but for us this was perfectly adequate.

The one we bought, but I battlefront, Galeforce 9 and I believe Peter Pig does versions too.

We did not use the base it came with instead installed them on top of thin washers with superglue (some of them on bases) and made a few damaged ones.

We also have a set to winterize for some other theatres, but that is for another colder day.

American Rifle Platoon

The American Rifle Platoon and the support options is more or less completed – there are a few I have not done yet and I will pick these up from Peter Pig at SELWG. The basic Platoon is based on the Battlefront US Rifle Company pack – this is not the plastic one they are currently selling but the old metal version, it gives you everything you need for the campaign except for some Shermans, Flamethrower, 50 cal. HMG and some Engineers (the new plastic box should do the same too).

Here are the models…

One of the three Rifle Sections, those Shermans will also come handy for the Scenarios.An extra Bazooka Team taking a careful aim

Some 30 cal. MMG teams in a little bit of an awkward position.A Sniper Team – taking out a Tank CommanderThree Sniper teams

Some extra BARsThe Whole Platoon with the Options

And then two mortar teams finished today (apart from gun metal colours – I realize now),

That is all we need for the American side, next the Germans….

/ Hope that was of some interest, take care

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This is a holding blog post for yet another diversion and show the bare bones for playing a Swedish Platoon in WW2 using Chain of Command (or any other Platoon based WW2 rules). It is a work in progress but as there is some recent interest on Twitter for this I decided to do write-up to get us started in doing some men and machines for the table top. This will be fleshed out with further blog updates moving forward, including:

National characteristics to be added to the platoon list – see notes below on this process.

Suggested ‘what-if’ scenarios for using the Swedes – potential German invasion in 1940 or 1943, the Swedish Army fighting the Soviets in Finland (early or late war, in an official capacity), an Allied attack in Northern Sweden on the iron ore mines, etc.

Modelling the Swedes – a note on what models can be used for Proxy Swedes and Equipment. In general Italians, polish and Japanese can all be used in some form or another for this purpose. There is some great inspiration out there as some people have already done some spectacular projects and others are in process.

Some more detailed presentation on Swedish weapons and vehicles available during the war years.

Vilken Stridsvagnsfanjunker! – a What a Tanker list for the Swedish bidding panzer ace – even more done just for fun.

Before I forget a big thank you to the ‘Swedes’ on twitter (you know who you are) who has helped this along.

This post seek to present a typical Swedish Rifle Platoon that you can use during the war years for some “what-if scenarios”. I have organised this in the way Too Fat Lardies does their platoons for Chain of Command – however, you should be able to transform this to whatever rules you are using. As for support options I have gone full in and based it on what was available at various times. Some of the options may not be logical from a geographical location, but I have left it for you to have some fun – it is a what-if situation anyway. If you do specific historical scenarios you may have to do some research on where different regiments were stationed (e.g. for armoured units) and modify your support options accordingly.

On the Too Fat Lardies webpage there is an article about designing platoon lists for Chain of Command and so far we have achieved the first two steps required (the organisation and the support), but I have not yet developed national characteristics for the platoon.

“Finally we need to look at national characteristics. This is a more time consuming process as it involves significant research into the way that the troops were trained and fought. Only with this research can we allocate characteristics to our forces which are based on the way they actually fought, rather then on some rather dodgy stereotypes.”

I mentioned in an earlier blog update that Too Fat Lardies have their new Blitzkrieg supplement on pre-order (link here). Have a look at the large amount of platoon lists available and the statement “ the manuals that the armies of the period issued to their troops. The French Tableau d’Effectifs de Guerre, the German KsTN lists, the Dutch Handboek vor den Soldat and Officier series and many others issued throughout the 1930s and up to 1940. These manuals tell us not just how troops were organised, but how their training prepared them for war and their doctrines.” Hard work has gone in to that supplement and if you are interested in gaming the early war give it a go.

So given this and to get a better understanding of the Swedish Platoon, I have ordered some old Swedish manuals and books from the 1930s and 1940s, that I hope will give me some further insights to develop some characteristics and a note on tactical doctrine. I want to avoid doing some national characteristics like “The Spirit of Gustavus Adolphus” or the “Tactical Brilliance of Charles XII”, in lieu of reading through these – but they are yet to arrive and then it is a matter of finding the time to review them.

Anyway, I have a word file and the pdf file for download here, that you may use as you wish. These are version 2 of this list as I will update the list and will make further versions available on this page. Please, if you do have any corrections or views let me know. As indicated, I am interested in how these men would have fought as a unit. The infantry tactica available on the Too Fat Lardies webpage here is an example of what would be ideal to have in a Swedish context – that is our target.

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Current Main Project

Currently working on a long term project called the Towards Moscow Trilogy (TMT) - re-creating a series of Battles from the most dramatic part of the Great Northern War (GNW) on the tabletop - the Russian Campaign 1708 to 1709. These battles will be presented at the Joy of Six 2017, 2018 and 2019. (http://www.thejoyof6.co.uk/).